I Broke the Rules and Planted 35 Different Edible Perennials in a Small Garden, Here's What Happened

I am growing over 35 different edible perennials in my suburban backyard garden. Today I'm going to show you what I'm growing and share with you how you can grow lots of perennials in a small space. This is my garden, but really it's a food forest. It's modeled after a natural forest. The main difference is that every plant in here is an edible. The diversity in my garden allows me to harvest fresh fruit from April all the way to November. Let's start out with my favorite all-time perennial, the apple. Look how loaded with fruit this tree is. It's amazing, just so much fresh fruit. And this is a semi-dwarf tree. Right next to me here I have a dwarf apple tree. This is my favorite all-time variety of apple, the honeycrisp. We see some nice apples back here. We just twist this off and then I've got even more apples on the tree back there. Look at them, nice sets of them. And this thing was loaded with even more fruit, but it recently just started dropping a lot of its fruit, so I'm going out and collecting a lot of it. Look how beautiful these apples are. And there's even more fruit that just like falls to the ground every day. You can see right here, nice fruit here. I'm growing a number of different varieties of apple and some early season ones, like the Williams Pride apple. That thing is ready in like late July, early August. And then after the Williams Pride comes my honeycrisp apple. And then after that, we have the Liberty apple ready. So I'm harvesting all different perennials over a long period of time, but I'm also growing different varieties of the specific perennials to extend my harvest season too. So it's so much fun when you can do that. Take a look down here though. Underneath my apples, I'm growing strawberries. I'm getting an extra harvest in this one spot right here. And when my apples fall, it kind of creates a little bed for them to drop onto, but there's nothing like grabbing fresh strawberries, fresh apples right out of your own backyard. Absolute treats. I want to bring you to one of my favorite spots in the whole food forest right here. Check this out. These are my asparagus plants. This, this patch right here, if you look down there, you can see the asparagus. It kicks out so many asparagus in April. This is my earliest perennial that I get a harvest from, and there's nothing like grabbing some fresh asparagus. In my opinion, it's one of the most underrated perennials you could ever grow. It's so great to come out here, snap them, and just eat them fresh, raw. They're so sweet. It tastes incredible compared to the stuff that they sell in the stores. I think this is such a unique spot because we have my earliest perennial right here, the asparagus, and then right next to it, this is my latest perennial. This is a persimmon tree. It's an American persimmon. Well, actually, it's a hybrid, but these things aren't ready until late November. You have to wait for them to get really soft. They get this bright orange color. They're super soft on the inside. It looks like jelly. It tastes like honey, and it's one of the most incredible fruits you could ever have. There's nothing like eating them. It's such a treat late in the year. Then right next to me here, I'm all just sitting in one little spot. We have my favorite variety of pear. This is the chajiro pear. It's an Asian pear, but they're ripening. Look, and they're falling right off. They're starting to get that nice color to them. These things taste like butterscotch. It's often called the butterscotch pear. It's so incredibly sweet, so good, and man, there's nothing like it. You'll notice it's a dwarf tree too, so you don't need a lot of space to grow a lot of food. Getting dwarfing varieties is a great option, especially if you're limited in the amount of space that you have. I made a big mistake this year though, unfortunately. I got a little greedy. I let this thing produce too much fruit, and the branch just snapped. That's okay though, but look at all the fruit hanging. Just too much fruit on one little tree. We'll have to harvest a lot of these fruits because this is such an incredible tasting pear. Then right down below me here, still in the same location, I have echinaceas. They are past their prime right now, but I have echinaceas spread throughout the entire garden. All I did was I planted echinaceas once, and then nature just spread them everywhere. One of the incredible and really fun things about a food forest is that it's self-replicating, and it's always trying to extend itself. So when you have good plants in here that you really like, the birds and everything else in nature will help extend your edge and help you kind of resell all these incredible things in different locations. Then right next to us here too, we've got my hazelnuts. Look at this one, and look at the size of this hazelnut right here. I'll show you some shots of some of the nuts on the hazelnut, but this tree has gotten massive. It provides some shade in the heat of the summer, and it also provides a good harvest for us. So it's a lot of fun to have a nut tree. It's like our long-term storage tree. This thing should grow for, you know, for as long as I'm around. A really incredible tree. Then over here, we have one of my cherry trees. This is the stella, but I also have a monster rainier tree cherry tree. It's a sweet cherry. The rainier cherries taste so sweet and so good. Harvesting them right off the tree, and I also have a yellow cherry in the back. That thing started to get into production this year. It kicked out so many cherries, and one of the great things about the yellow cherry is that the birds are less attracted to it. So it allowed us to get a bigger harvest from it. Take a pan down right here. This guy is who watches out for the whole food forest. He's what's known as the guardian of the garden. He's always working out here. He's keeping out all the critters. He's helping with the planting, and we can never do it without this guy. This guy was one of the main inspirations for the food forest. He was here when we planted the first tree, and he's been protecting it ever since. Makes you spam some hearts down low for the young king. Right, Boyo? And if you move up right above him, you'll notice we have a fig tree. Look how loaded this fig tree is, how big it is. In one of my other fig trees, I have some ripe figs on it, but it's just another great perennial to get in. It's very easy to propagate, and I mean, I just have to wrap it where I live around here in the winter. But besides that, it's maintenance-free, and it's a great tree to have. And then here we have the grapes. You'll notice this year a lot of the grapes have been robbed by some stuff, but I still have different locations where I've got a bunch of different grapes. I'll give you some shots of those, but in the past, this spot was just loaded with grapes on top. All you do is just walk by. You almost bump your head into the grapes, and there's just so many grapes above you. Just grab them when they're fresh and snack on them. Move right down here. This is another perennial right here. We've got the rosemary, and I love the rosemary. Obviously, we use it for cooking chicken and for so many different things. One of the cool things about this, you'll notice, is that I'm growing this rosemary in a bucket. This is another way to get more out of the space you have, and it kind of allows you to grow more perennials than you think you could even fit. Just put them in a bucket like this. Next up, we have raspberries. These are the fall-bearing raspberries, also known as ever-bearing raspberries, because you can get two harvests from them. These are my favorite varieties, the yellow ones. We've got the yellow and the fall gold. They're so incredibly sweet. In my opinion, they're a way better flavor than the red raspberries. They're, without a doubt, my favorite flavored raspberry. Nothing like it. Below us right here, we have an oregano plant. It's looking a bit sad right now, but in the spring and summer, this thing is massive. It has so many leaves on it, and then once it starts to flower, it brings in an incredible amount of pollinators. Like, you won't even believe how many bees and stuff are on this oregano right here. And then next to me here, we've got a peach tree. The peaches are unbelievable. You go out and grab a fresh peach right off the tree when it's ripe, and then bite into it. It's so juicy, it's so sweet, and it's way better than anything you get in the store. I say that a lot, but it's just, that's the truth when you grow the stuff yourself. And then next to us here, we have some blackberries. The blackberries are delicious. We have a bunch of different plants, and they were loaded this year. I mean, we're talking so many blackberries on them. One of the cool things about this variety of blackberry is, you'll notice, it doesn't have any thorns on it. So, it's really nice not having to worry about the thorns when it comes to the blackberries. And then under here too, we've got lemon balm. I've got lemon balm growing in a bunch of different locations. This is a nice perennial herb, and it reseeds itself. We let it grow. It smells incredible, and man, it's really a nice plant. And then if you swing around right behind you, we've got some mint growing. When it comes to your mint though, I wouldn't suggest you ever plant this in the ground. This thing can really start to take over an area, especially if you don't have a lot of space. So, when you're growing mint, plant this one in a pot. Look up here. Amongst the mint, we've got some currants. This is the white currant. It's such a great flavored currant, and it has so much fruit on it when it's in its peak, and it's got a good flavor. There's some kind of relatively larger seeds in it, but overall, it's a really fun crop to grow. It's not the kind of thing you'd really find in a food store. Right under us here, we have some rhubarb. I mean, you got to make sure you're growing some rhubarb if you have some strawberries growing too. This is one of my rhubarb plants. Let me bring you over to the other one that's way bigger and healthier looking. This thing has some massive leaves, and you should see in the spring, its leaves are even way bigger. Healthy plant though. And then come this way as we pass by some more sunflowers. And then up here, this is that gold cherry that I was telling you about with the yellow cherries on it. It's incredibly productive, and the tree just, I mean, it hit its heavy production this year, and it was such a beautiful thing to see. Come back here, I want to show you some a little bit more rare things. This one right here is an orange tree, and you can grow it in New Jersey. It's a citrus, and it's called the Flying Dragon Hardy Orange Tree, and it doesn't have the best fruit on it. It's not something I would probably plant again because it's so spiky, but overall, it's still pretty cool to be able to say, I'm growing a citrus in New Jersey. Right here, we have some horseradish. We should get a nice harvest from this this year. Look at that back there. So we're growing our own horseradish, and we're growing it underneath our cherry tree. Another cool perennial to get into the ground, probably one you haven't seen before. And then up here, this is a Japanese raisin tree. This one we've actually never gotten fruit from, but the tree is beautiful. It's got nice leaves on and stuff. We're hoping to get a harvest sometime in the future, but overall, it's a pretty cool looking tree. And then on the side of my property, like in the other garden, we've got jujubes growing. It's a really unique looking fruit. I think it's called the Chinese date, and you can allow them to dry out, and it almost tastes a little bit like an apple, but they're pretty cool trees besides the fact that they're spiked, but it's a lot of fun to grow. And when you have your own backyard, and you can try out whatever kind of stuff you want to grow, maybe it's unique, maybe it's different, but you got to make sure you have a lot of the good apples and the peaches and those kinds of things. But sometimes it's fun to just try some different stuff out. Here we have another one of my favorite all-time fruits to eat fresh. This is a blueberry bush, and this year was absolutely loaded with blueberries. This bush right here has the actual dark blue blueberries, and then the other bush next to it has pink blueberries. It's known as the pink lemonade. Not only does it look cool, but it's probably, in my opinion, one of the best flavored blueberries out there. Look down here, we've got some more perennials and pots. This one right here is lavender. I mean, I know you guys know a lot about lavender, but planting them in pots is another, like I mentioned, great way to save space and allows you to grow all different kinds of perennials. Next to us here, we have sage growing in a pot too. This is a another typical perennial that we use for like seasoning and stuff, and it's a desert plant, but still growing relatively well here. Move this way, I want to show you something. Here we've got more pears. This is different than that other Asian pear, because it's not like a round pear, but it still is an Asian pear, and this tree always kicks out so much fruit. It's loaded, and this thing will be ready late in the season too, so it's a great season extender when it comes to fruit trees. And then behind me right here, this is the beech plum. This year I got some really nice harvest from this beech plum here. The plums are relatively small. They're yellow, and it almost looks like a big cherry, but it still packs a big delicious flavor to it, so it's really cool to have some plum trees growing in the backyard. And then in a different location, I have a rosa rugosa growing. It's in the rose family, but it has beautiful big pink flowers, and it also has big edible hips on it, which is really nice, because as we know, roses are in the same family as apples, so it's almost like related to the apple a little bit. Then on my side garden, I have some black cap raspberries. Those are so delicious. I always say that those raspberries, they almost taste like a sweeter version of like like a warhead. It's one of those plants and those fruits that literally tastes like it's nature's candy. I also have some boysenberries over there. Those are a unique berry where it's two different berries blended together. It looks cool, it tastes great, and it's just a really fun one to grow overall. And then I also have some gooseberries growing. They are a unique one too. They're similar to currants, but different. They're larger, and they almost look like basketballs, and you pop in your mouth. It has a good flavor, and they're great for using in pies too. Next to my gooseberries, I also have some emerald carpet raspberries growing in the ground. This one is a ground cover. It kind of just like stays really low to the ground, takes over a section, and it's a pretty fun one to grow, because you can grow it in different layers. Right here you'll notice, just like my apple tree, I've got strawberries underneath my pear tree. So when you're growing in a fruit forest, you want to occupy as many layers as you can with different kinds of perennials and fruits. And that allows you to get bigger harvests, and it allows you to get more out of the space that you have. One thing is we're also blending in annuals with all of our perennials here. So swing around. We're heading into fall, so we've got some of our fall stuff going in these beds here. You'll see we've got some different kinds of brassicas, spinach, carrots, and then we also have a bunch of squash that I planted late that are still kicking out squash. They're just getting ready to flower and put some more squash out. I've got a bunch of squash planted over here too, like one of my favorite squash here. This is the Gelber Englisher Custard Squash. A patty pan squash, really good flavor, really good production. And you know we're growing a lot of tomatoes vertically, packed with fruit. Even though we're basically into September now, it doesn't matter. There's still a lot of fruit on these. Check these up here. Look at the beautiful sets of fruit you see up here. Let's jump into a few more of the perennials though. Next up is the Autumn Olive. These are in the Eliagnus family. They're nitrogen fixers, so they get massive and they grow super, super fast. You can see the fruit on them right here forming. This is one of those edible perennials that I would probably never plant again, especially if you have limited space, because like I mentioned, they grow fast and the fruit doesn't taste that great. It's a cool plant to have, but overall I want to grow it again. It can become a little invasive in some areas too, so I can't say I'd ever plant this one again. I also have another crop that I probably would never grow again if I didn't have a lot of space. That's the Aronia Bush. The berries look really good and you could use them for like a bunch of different kinds of preservation, but overall when you try to eat them fresh, they taste horrible. So it's not something I would probably grow again, especially if I have limited space. Then another herb we forgot to mention was the Thyme. The Thyme is, as you guys know, fantastic for using for chicken dishes and stuff. It's a great perennial to have in your backyard and it's one you could also plant in a pot if you want to save space. And then I'm also growing the Fuyu Persimmon. Earlier I showed you a hybrid of a Native American Persimmon and a Fuyu, but I'm also growing the Fuyu Persimmon, which is like a completely different kind of persimmon. This one you eat when it's actually hard. So it's a great persimmon to have. So if you have the space, make sure you try to grow both kinds so you can get the best of both worlds. That's today's video, growers. Thanks for watching. We hope you enjoyed it. We hope you got something out of it. Me and Tuck had a blast out here running around showing you all of our different perennials that we're growing in our backyard garden. It may look like that we have a lot of space, but we really don't have that much space. The whole property is one third of an acre and we really only garden on one third of that. It's the fruit trees and the different levels that make the garden seem way bigger than it is. And it's also the young king out here working hard that makes the garden seem bigger than it is because we can get consistent harvest because we always have something that's protecting the harvest. This guy never takes a break. He's always out here working. It's hot today. We're talking like wicked hot for this time of the year. You think this guy's going to quit? No way. He's always out here. He's always doing his thing. Right Boyo? So we hope we gave you guys some ideas of some different kinds of perennials that you can plant and we hope that we gave you some good space saving techniques to make sure you get the most out of the area that you have and you can just convert whatever kind of space you have into food. Think about that. You might just have a patio. Doesn't matter. You can get perennials planted there. You can convert concrete into food. Not directly, but that space is now being occupied by something you can eat. Me and Tuck wanted to thank everyone for the continual support and for everyone who's a part of Team Grow. If you want to be a part of Team Grow, all you have to do is start growing some of your own food at home and become part of the community. We're going out there. We're growing some of our own food and then we're also encouraging others to grow their own food too and then they're encouraging others. So it becomes this exponential compounding thing and we're all growing a better future together. The idea of Team Grow comes from the idea of a food forest where it's always self-replicating. It's always expanding. So you plant one thing, it falls to the ground, it seeds, another thing comes up and it's just like that's how gardens are grown. That's how nature does it and that's how Team Grow is growing. Just from one seed, Tuck right here, and it expands and expands and grows from that until we're all out there producing large amounts of fruit, dropping our seed down and growing more gardens throughout the whole world. Now it's time to announce the winner of last week's giveaway for the Veggo Kitchen Composter. You guys submitted your guesses. What I did was I went on Google. I typed in random number generator. I set it between 1 and 500. Then I clicked generate. It kicked me out the number 319. I went into the submissions and saw who put 319 in first and the winner is, drumroll, C.L. McCowan. Congratulations on winning the Veggo Kitchen Composter and everyone down low send some hearts to C.L. McCowan and send him some love and some congratulations. Stay tuned. We're going to be giving more things away, doing a lot more giveaways because we love doing it. So stay tuned for that and let us know down low also what you want me and Tuck to give away next. We love just sharing stuff with Team Grow. This guy's out here. He said he loves doing the giveaways. He loves giving back to the community for all the love and the hearts you Me and Tuck wanted to mention thank you to one of our new channel members, Carol Weitzman. Thanks for being a part of Team Grow. Thanks for having your hand in literally everything we're doing out here. It's a great feeling to be surrounded by food. Even when we peek right over here you can see there's more of the Gelbert Englisher Custard Squash. You notice I grow them off the side of my raised beds and down along the ground. This allows me to get again more space out of, I mean more production out of the space that we have and it's just such a blast to be out here. I don't ever want to end these videos because me and Tuck just always have fun connecting with all of you. So we would appreciate it if you guys hit that like button and then if you enjoyed the video hit the subscribe button and don't forget to share this video with your friends so they can be introduced to Team Grow and they can be growing some of their own incredible food at home. There is literally nothing like going up to an apple tree, grabbing the fruit, or going down to your plants, picking up a strawberry, tasting it, and finally realizing what real food is actually supposed to taste like. Tuck and James will be back to you again real soon. We out!